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reifman writes "Apple's not the only company to save billions in taxes through Nevada as The New York Times reported yesterday. Here's how Microsoft's saved $4.37 billion in tax payments to Washington State and how it's led indirectly to $4 billion in K-12 and Higher Education cuts since 2008. 18% of University of Washington freshman are now foreigners (because they pay more) up from 2% six years ago. Washington State ranks 47th nationally in 18-24 yo college enrollment and 48th in K-12 class size. This hasn't stopped the architect of the company's Nevada tax dodge from writing in The Seattle Times: 'it's [Washington] state's paramount duty to provide for the public education of all children. Unfortunately, steady declines in public resources now threaten our ability to live up to that commitment.' Yes, indeed."

Are you assuming slashdot still brings in enough traffic to make money?

Instead of attempting to name and shame companies, perhaps instead we should try to find a mega-corp that actually does fairly and honestly pay its full tax bill. How about a bit of positive reporting?

Instead of attempting to name and shame companies, perhaps instead we should try to find a mega-corp that actually does fairly and honestly pay its full tax bill. How about a bit of positive reporting?

My only guess at such a company would be Chik-Fil-A since they close on Sundays despite the obviously lost business. I have a difficult time thinking of any other companies that would lose money solely on moral grounds like that.

To be honest I'm not entirely sure if "mega-corp" and "plays by the rules" would ever go hand-in-hand, now would they? If you read anything about nearly any big company you hear about how they got their hands dirty squashing the competition and skirting every rule they can. Look at Microsoft with their EEE philosophy.

I hate to nitpick, but that's not the Sabbath. Jews think it's Saturday, Christians think it's Sunday. That doesn't mean one or the other is right, and for the non-Christian, non-Jew audience, you might clarify.

They are closed on the Jewish Sabbath, actually Shabbat, which is a specific day, not the Sabbath which is dependent on religious affiliation.

The history of who decided when it is, is kinda important for when you are describing it. Chick-fil-A is closed on one Sabbath, B&H is closed on the other. It helps to specify when there is disagreement, in this case, I would not even use "Sabbath" generically, I would specify which religion. Or if discussing Judaism, Shabbat might be better since that's the way I have read it. Plus you score Lebowski fan points.

They all pay their taxes honestly. The problem is, they're exploiting holes in tax law to minimize their tax burden. Everyone does this. Even your average Joe citizen. They file their taxes with as many exemptions as possible, to minimize what they have to pay.

The larger the company, the more ways they have to get around it. Look at GE [businessinsider.com].

I'm sure most of us have heard of tax shelters, offshore accounts, blah, blah, blah.. There are a plethora of ways to hide income, or minimize its impact on you.

I, JWSmythe, could open JWSmythe Consulting in any of a number of countries. Payments to "me" could go to these offshore companies with no tax burden in the US. When tax time comes around, *I*, the citizen of the US, never earned a penny here. I did enjoy the comforts of an off shore company paying my mortgage, utilities, and whatever other expenses I had.

It doesn't work quite that smoothly. Making no money can raise red flags. So I would be paid a low salary, but I still wouldn't need to worry about pesky things like bills.

For the record, I do not operate this way. It's usually people and companies that make at least $500k/yr that benefit from it. For what I make, it it would cost me more to set up the offshore company than I pay in taxes. I report everything honestly. I pay my taxes appropriate for where I actually live. If I were to cheat the system in any sort of way, I'd get treated like a criminal, and suffer from tax liens, payroll deduction, and bank account seizures. Us citizens have to worry about such things. Big companies rarely do. At worst, they can negotiate their way around such problems.

In the case of the Apple and Microsoft stories, they used domestic tax havens to avoid paying state taxes. I'm sure they also used quite a few international ones for various dealings. Many companies also frequently get tax incentives for operating in a particular city. I've seen many companies come and go, where a local government will offer them a period of no taxes, or even negative taxes (us taxpayers pay them). When the term of that agreement expires, and the local government expects to start getting a return on their investment, the company moves that office to somewhere else willing to make a sweet offer. It's good for the company. It's not so good for the people who were working in that location, when they find that their job has been moved or downsized.

IMHO, no company should get special treatment. Taxes work because everyone pays equally. In reality, the lower classes cover the tax burden, while the large corporations enjoy benefits.

I didn't read too far into the MS and Apple situation. It seems there is a royalty tax, which may have been imposed by the state as an attempt to profit from a small high income segment of the state's industry. That's speculation though, I didn't research that at all.

The rich pay more in total dollars, but far less as a percentage of income. They have more deductions possible, those earning capital gains pay half the rate of the middle class, and their SS and Medicare taxes are a far lower percentage of their income since those are capped at a given amount.

There's no excuse for Warren Buffet to pay a lower percentage of his income in taxes than me. None whatever. It's just wrong.

Part of the problem is there is no clear definition of where middle class ends and upper class begins. If you use the traditional definition of wealthy, that is well less than 1% of the US population. Even then, upper middle class covers a huge swath of income earners, about 1/3 of the population, starting at around $65000 for a single earner and going to about $350k to 650k (that number varies widely - depends on where you start the lower upper class). They also skew the information further by showing a gr

Surely, you aren't saying you believe that setting up shell companies in alternate countries is honest, despite the legal loopholes that allow for it.

As for fair... the new age accounting trickery used by Microsoft and Apple is not available to all. They are special-case legal loopholes that are exploitable only by a small fraction of businesses working in very specific industries.

I think everyone tries to minimize their tax burden. What makes these companies stand out is the vast extent of effort they put into it.

I earn an above average salary and I pay my accountant to do my taxes to ensure that I am able to claim all the deductions that I am entitled to. The difference is that I don't have a shell company set up in a tax haven paying me in some nefarious manner that is done to avoid yet another fee of some sort. These stories wouldn't be stories if MS or Apple simply claimed all that they could on their tax statements, they are stories because of the absurd lengths that they go to. I am absolutely sure that/. and many websites try to claim all that they are entitled to, but I would be exceptionally surprised if the lengths that they went to included offshore tax havens, "Offices" set up in a state to claim a different regional address and the like.

I think everyone tries to minimize their tax burden. What makes these companies stand out is the vast extent of effort they put into it.

I earn an above average salary and I pay my accountant to do my taxes to ensure that I am able to claim all the deductions that I am entitled to. The difference is that I don't have a shell company set up in a tax haven paying me in some nefarious manner that is done to avoid yet another fee of some sort. These stories wouldn't be stories if MS or Apple simply claimed all that they could on their tax statements, they are stories because of the absurd lengths that they go to. I am absolutely sure that/. and many websites try to claim all that they are entitled to, but I would be exceptionally surprised if the lengths that they went to included offshore tax havens, "Offices" set up in a state to claim a different regional address and the like.

Summary: when you do it that's OK, but when someone else does it, that's bad.

Lol, wealthy individuals do all sorts of tax evasion in quite same way as corporations do it. Those methods are available to him, assuming he'd make enough money for them to make financial sense. I personally think it's unethical. Not every legal thing out there is ethical or the right thing to do.

Tax avoidance is not unethical. It is in fact legally required of publicly held corporations who must operate to the maximum legal advantage of their stockholders.

I think is could be unethical at times. If the company takes from the community (using city services, etc) and does not put back much of anything, it harms the community. In the short term it looks good on the books, but in the long term, I believe it can harm the company, by harming the community. For an example, the students in town have a substandard education because of a lack of revenue. After several years of substandard education the word gets out and the company has trouble filling positions in that town. Maximizing revenue can be short sighted and unethical. Companies should support the cities, states, and countries where they do business. In the long term, it hurts them if they don't support their communities.

Publicly traded companies have a fiduciary responsibility to their share holders to save money and maximize return on their investments. Therefore it is the right thing to do.

I would argue that avoiding taxes through legal maneuvering inconsistent with the law's intent is not an ethical means of satisfying a corporation's fiduciary responsibility to its stockholders.

More profits flow to share holders, who pay taxes on their earnings, at a higher rate than the corporation does.

Corporations are "persons" legally distinct from their owners. As such, the way it's supposed to work is that both the corporation and the stockholders are taxed for their particular incomes as individuals. If that seems unfair, then perhaps corporations should not be treated as persons under the law?

A corporation, in its IPO papers, and subsequent SEC filings, clearly defines what its goals are. You're entirely mistaken if you think that every publicly traded company must "save money and maximize shareholder ROI". It's a common misconception. Stop repeating it.

Even Warren Buffet claims all the deductions and tax breaks he can, all while pointing out that he could and should pay more. If he, or I, or Fluffeh just gave money to the federal government, it would have no measurable effect on the overall deficit or direction of government spending. If, on the other hand, everyone who could pay more did, we could minimize the deficit when times are bad, pull into a profit when times are good, and try to get on a plan to pay down the debt.

Voluntary extra payments just let people with empathy and benevolence cover for people with neither. We don't want to enable those people to live a life of selfishness. We want to force them to comply with the will of the majority. And frankly, most of the laws of society exists to force people who lack empathy and benevolence to comply under penalty of imprisonment. Exactly what should be forced and what shouldn't is the matter for strong, healthy political debate. But anyone who argues that no one should be forced to pretend to have empathy or to do anything that benefits society likely lacks empathy and benevolence, and serves to prove why we need laws to force compliance.

Voluntary extra payments just let people with empathy and benevolence cover for people with neither.

Actually, no. Voluntary extra payments to the federal government allow it to continue to murder people overseas and give unearned money to sociopathic corporations who then give a little bit back to politicians in the form of bribes^Hcampaign contributions. In my book, it's ethical to withhold as much money from the federal government as possible, although obviously it's a lot safer if you find legal methods of doing so.

Withholding money from state governments, on the other hand, seems a little worse to me. State governments aren't engaged in illegal wars of aggression overseas (nor do their budgets pay for that; that comes entirely from 1) federal income tax payments and 2) the Fed printing money and 3) borrowing from other countries), and that's generally where the funding for social programs comes from these days. It's certainly where the money for pre-college education comes from, so a company chiding the state government for not spending enough on education, and then that company dodging taxes as much as possible with loopholes and foreign "offices" is the height of hypocrisy.

Even Warren Buffet claims all the deductions and tax breaks he can, all while pointing out that he could and should pay more. If he, or I, or Fluffeh just gave money to the federal government, it would have no measurable effect on the overall deficit or direction of government spending.

On the other hand.. it would make Warren Buffet's claims more credible. If he should pay more taxes, and doesn't.. it hurts his argument severely to spend a lot of money on tax accountants to pay less in taxes. The extra voluntary payments aren't covering for other people's selfishness. Its fucking covering one person's share of the supposed extra costs we should all be paying. "Do as I say, not as I do" isn't a strong argument for most people. If we should pay more and don't, making us selfish, then not paying more when he could makes Buffet both selfish and hypocritical.

Buffet's argument isn't that rich people should pay more because they want to, but that rich people should be forced to pay more because the tax burden is shifted away from the rich, who can afford to pay more, to the middle class, who can't afford to pay more.
Of course the ugly truth is that we need to raise taxes on *everyone* to get our finances in order, but that should be a big hike for the rich and a small hike for everyone else.

State and local governments are responsible for the actions of Microsoft and Apple because they passed the laws making such tax avoidance possible. It's unreasonable to think that any company or individual would not try to pay the lowest legal amount.

But the lengths to which Apple, Microsoft, and the other tech giants have gone to influence these laws is what offends me. The tech lobby's biggest priority is to allow high-tech firms to bring back profits from overseas operations that were established precise

If you're located in a given community (country, state, county, town), pay the damn taxes there, not elsewhere. What's so hard about that?

I think that tax laws, economic rules and regulations are getting to be so complicated that large scale companies are able to find and exploit these rules. What I was saying in my post further above which seems to have been misinterpreted is that I don't think it is bad that there are all sorts of claims that can be made to lessen taxes - after all each one of those breaks was put in to strengthen some group of people/companies. I think it is more of an ethical debate - at which point does lowering taxes be

All of the above. Where are the people employed, where are significant assets (e.g. expensive mfg equipment) located, where do they have a lot of square footage? But for the purposes of taxing profit, it's simple: tax them based on the number of employees in that state, divided by the total number of employees. If there's 20,000 employees worldwide, and 15,000 of them are in the state, then they need to pay income taxes on 75% of their profit to that state. Obviously, there's a reason why they located i

Which is precisely the reason individuals and companies should take all the deductions they can, and keep that money out of the hands of politicians.

We need government, and government needs taxes to operate. But the legitimate purpose of government is national defense, implementing a legal/court system, promoting the welfare of the people (actual people, not corporations), promoting the development of infrastructure and standards, and protecting the resources and environment. When you give them more money, they just find more ways to spend it, usually wastefully or for the benefit of a few friends/donors.

Our government is fine. It's the voters who are incompetent. We'll vote for something 10 times and then decide 2 years later right before construction that we don't want it... then spend another 10 years trying to decide what to do only to scratch that at the last second.

Also incompetence I've found is far more prevalent when you're broke. When you're working the razor's edge of a budget and you screw up at all--it all goes to shit. When you have a surplus budget you can usually literally buy yourself

The most "fair" tax is wealth, not income. Taxing income hold back those who are trying to gain wealth, so the wealthy (those with the power) prefer taxing income. Not to mention that the rich live off billions with zero income. What were the tax bills on Steve Jobs the last 5 years of his life? He made $1 in salary and didn't cash out his stock, instead, he hoarded it and borrowed against it, which allows him to spend it without being taxed on it.

But taxing wealth will never happen (except at death, when it is essentially income for others) because the rich don't want it, and counting wealth is hard.

We already have a wealth tax; it's call inflation. Just print more fiat money and spend it. Then all money buys less whether it's income or savings. Best of all, for the politicians, is that they don't get blamed for 'raising taxes' and I'm afraid most people don't understand this.

My problem with a tax on wealth is that it essentially eliminates ownership. I already feel that way about my house--I'm taxed on something I own, merely because I own it. If I can't pay the tax, the property is taken from me by the government. I think that a person should be able to own things, so I oppose taxes like this. It has nothing to do with being rich, other than the fact that rich people tend to own more things than poor people.

My problem with a tax on wealth is that it essentially eliminates ownership. I already feel that way about my house--I'm taxed on something I own, merely because I own it.

One could argue that your property rights are recognized, attested, and enforced by society (usually via the government), so you're getting a service which should be paid for. This means the tax you pay doesn't eliminate your ownership - on the contrary, it's part of what ownership is. It makes sense that the payment should be more or less proportional to the value of the property.

You only own your house to the extent that society defends it for you. Maybe that's the local beat cop, maybe it's the city swat team, maybe it's the national guard or whole fuckin' army. The point is, property "rights" have annual dues. Pay up or that right goes out the door along with the right to breath clean air, drink clean water, be treated when sick, and not be shot. (And frankly, any of those other rights like free speech and religion don't matter when you lack those first ones.)

They aren't being punished for being rich. They are paying their share. The government doesn't do much to "protect" or "serve" the homeless and jobless. Sure, there are some welfare programs, but mostly aimed at getting the problem off the street so the rich don't have to see them, or have their houses broken into. The rich get all the gains. If Canada were to invade tomorrow, what would the effect be for the jobless homeless person? Nothing, other than the new leaders talking funny, eh? But the ric

It seems to me all the states are in a race to the bottom to make big companies come to their state. The end game is nobody pays taxes, because states are too afraid of losing companies in their jurisdiction. The only way out is for all the states to gather together and put an end to these races to the bottom.

Except no one is moving to Nevada. The open an accounting office there, at most. More likely it is just a PO Box.

Microsoft's major physical presence is in Redmond, WA and the surrounding area.

I wonder what Washington would lose in the way of property tax and sales taxes in Microsoft moved wholesale to Nevada -- and most of their employees up and moved. I'll bet it is a damn sight more than $4 billion.

The State of Washington could have closed this loophole loooooong ago by simply passing a law, "If you operate a business here, you must pay taxes on all your income." If Microsoft doesn't like it they can pack-up and move out. I doubt the state would miss the ~1000 job loss out of millions of jobs..... it's certainly less painful that losing 4 billion in taxes last year.

This is what competition between the States brings us.Corporate profits are up, wages are flat, and State tax revenues are down.

Just wait till property taxes get reassessed downward and State tax revenues plunge even further.It's hard to talk about this without sounding like a partisan, but that's only because one side of the debate wants these kinds of anti-social outcomes.

Competition is a good thing, except when it isn't. Politicians doing something to look like they are doing something and competing against other politicians isn't a game that will have a good result for any of us.

All countries compete with each other for commerce and trade. Why shouldn't states as well? As long as it's fair commerce, competition is good.

Step 1. Set up subsidiaries/shell corporations to evade/avoid taxesStep 2. Get called out on it by the IRS or other enforcement agencyStep 3. Use some of the money you earned by tax evasion/avoidance to stall the court case for yearsStep 4. Settle for a fraction of what you really oweStep 5. Profit!!!

I usually don't respond to ACs, but what makes you think this qualifies as "fair commerce"?And while I'm challenging your basic assumptions, what do you think makes commerce fair or competitive?

I wonder how much tax revenue Washington State will get if Microsoft just up and leaves the state if Washington State 'punishes' Microsoft.
What's 100% of zero again? I'm not good at math but I think it's zero...

So, how do you propose that the workers that Microsoft depends on be educated? Do you have a means of making this happen that will actually function properly, or are you just all for no taxes for companies that enjoy the benefit of public services?

and how it's led indirectly to $4 billion in K-12 and Higher Education cuts since 2008

That's political theater. Cut education and call a press conference while ignoring the cesspool of waste and mismanagement that permeates government bureaucracy.
News flash: Taxes are a cost of doing business. Costs of doing business are passed on to the consumer. Microsoft and Apple would not pay these taxes in any event. Their customers would pay them through higher prices.

News flash: Taxes are a cost of doing business. Costs of doing business are passed on to the consumer. Microsoft and Apple would not pay these taxes in any event. Their customers would pay them through higher prices.

Now that you mention it, that makes sense. Someone needs to pay for a company's use of the public infrastructure, access to the blessings of liberty, etc. If you tax the company and they elect to pass it on to their customers, that means the people who are using their products and services pay for it. But if you don't tax the company, the price is spread over everybody, including those who don't use the company's products and services.

From what I have seen, businesses with as few as one employee actively seek out ways to cheat the tax code. Naturally, the larger businesses find even more creative ways to do it, to preserve even more of their own money.

Now, is this a good argument for a "flat tax"? Probably not. In reality, if there were a flat tax implemented at the federal and/or state level, you could count on the congressional powers that be to grant special favors to their favorite sponsors that would make it far less than "fl

The purpose of a University is to teach, not to make a profit (at least that is the case here in Australia where university fees are still heavily subsidized) while the purpose of a company is to make money.

I certainly expect the university to be paying the taxes it owes to the state, and I would expect that Microsoft does the same.

Because MS uses the infrastructure and expects the rest of us including its workers to pay for the right to work. Where I come from that is slavery when you work for free. True the student should pay for some of it, but MS is the benefactor in recruiting CS students from U of Washington. Infact, U of Washington is cutting its computer science program from lack of funding.

Who gets hurt now? Not the students but Microsoft. It is also not fair for Microsoft to soley pay either as its a public good that benefits other employers in the area and a level tax keeps it fair that everyone pays and benefits.

Businesses use roads to ship products, uses the military to keep the world safe to do business, businesses benefit the most from IP laws, and free trade. I would even say they benefit a lot more than you nor I. IP laws and free trade hurt us more than anything. It is there to benefit employers who do not pay for it but expect it others to pay for it then go in a right wing circle jerk about the evils of welfare moms when they are the worst ones.

MS did the right thing by avoiding taxes as an individual corporation. However, the loopholes need to be closed. Austerity will come to the US soon and you and I will end up paying for things your employer uses through forced higher taxes.

College is for the unmotivated or those who have to be spoonfed their information.

Yeah, you're right.

Let's all hope all the medical staff you ever meet isn't self-taught.Or that building you live in isn't designed and made by a self-taught architects and builders.Or that your car, computer, mobile phone, blender, pace-maker etc. are not products someone who's self-taught banged together in their garage out of bubblegum and lint.

Even if I believed you (and claims like these are a dime a dozen on the Internet), it's at best an isolated case. Teaching yourself PHP is hardly brilliance. Anybody can do it. Teaching yourself to code well, that's a whole other ballgame. The mere fact that you didn't say "I taught myself C++" or "I taught myself Java", but in fact, picked out a language that could best be described as the BASIC for the 21st century suggests to me that your proof of why higher education is needed, not why it isn't.

I'll wager you're the kind of talentless hack that I have to clean up after. I was paid by the hour by a friend of mine's company to fix up a PHP catastrophe coded by some assholes who actually got away with $40,000 for a site that violated every notion of security and best practices. I made $20,000 on it, so by your calculation I'm the talentless chump, but by any reasonable standard, the assholes who ripped off a company for $40,000 for a product that wasn't worth taking a shit on would have been the talentless ones.

I have to pay for the degree with debt because MS wanted a higher margin.

No, you're going into debt because government-backed loan programs removed the market pressure to hold down costs. If anyone can go to college just by taking out a loan, the colleges have no reason to limit what they charge.

In short, they are exploiting the rules in a way which allows them to play a game within a game, unavailable to "ordinary" players - but whose score carries into the original game.
And they are cheating while playing the game within the game.

A Nevada C corporation costs about $475 a year including renewal fee, resident agent, PO box, and business license. No extraordinary qualities required on the part of the player. Just a credit card.

A Nevada C corporation costs about $475 a year including renewal fee, resident agent, PO box, and business license.

So, everyone everywhere in the USA should incorporate themselves and their family, register themselves as a business in Nevada and the playing field is level again?

I'm not sure that it would work QUITE like that, nor that the IRS would simply shrug their shoulders "We are powerless, alas!" and just let it slide.I mean... with all due respect, somehow I doubt that you're the first person who came up with that idea and yet it does not seem as if everyone is using it.

This thread is not about federal taxes. It's about state-level taxes. Incorporating in a state allows principles in an enterprise to protect their own assets against litigation and other liabilities while still operating the business. If they have a good accountant, it can also be a way to legitimately reduce federal income taxes, however it can open up the company to considerably higher state and local tax liabilities in some jurisdictions.

Incorporating in a DIFFERENT state that does not have corporate income taxes, B&O taxes, or other impediments to business is a way to minimize the costs of running the enterprise by legally doing an end run around location-based taxes.

Incidentally, MS has physical facilities all over the state of WA, not just in Redmond. They pay more in property taxes ever year than most people here will ever see in a lifetime. Public Education in WA is primarily financed by property taxes and to a small extent, by the state lottery. The parent article is just alarmist election-year bullshit. There are a million legitimate reasons to be pissed at Microsoft. This isn't one of them.

>>>I am appalled that Microsoft is to blame for the current state of our university.

Wow.You're as gullible as a FOX or NBC news viewer. You bought-into the politicians' propaganda hook, line, and sinker like a fish. The only ones to blame, are not Microsoft who followed the tax laws, but the poltiicians who failed to REWRITE the tax laws such that MS and other corporations would have to pay on all their income (since they reside in washington).

I am appalled that Microsoft is to blame for the current state of our university.

Wow.You're as gullible as a FOX or NBC news viewer. You bought-into the politicians' propaganda hook, line, and sinker like a fish. The only ones to blame, are not Microsoft who followed the tax laws, but the poltiicians who failed to REWRITE the tax laws such that MS and other corporations would have to pay on all their income (since they reside in washington).

Well this simply won't do. This is what happens when the lemmings go off their meds and start thinking for themselves. We simply can't have the likes of you questioning the order of things. No siree, bob.

The only ones to blame, are not Microsoft who followed the tax laws, but the poltiicians who failed to REWRITE the tax laws such that MS and other corporations would have to pay on all their income (since they reside in washington).

Failed to REWRITE the tax laws?

I see you are totally unfamiliar with Washington State tax policy.

The state has bent over backwards giving concession after concession to Boeing, Microsoft, Starbucks, Amazon, to keep them from moving out of state lock stock and barrel. Not only have the rewritten the tax laws, they have done so repeatedly and done so in a manor that these companies qualify for special exemptions, carefully worded so as not to call attention, but exemptions that realistically can only be taken advantage of by these big companies.

I am appalled that Microsoft is to blame for the current state of our university.

Oh come off it.Why not take a few government and economics classes while you are there, and actually learn something about how society and business works.

Microsoft does what EVERY company does, and they are far from the worst offenders. Take a look at Boeing some day with regard to all the special concessions they have extracted from Washington state over the years merely by raising the threat of moving to Kansas. When those threats didn't seem to be working, they actually moved their corporate headquarte

Why is it that when CEOs are payed ridiculous compensation packages people say that "to attract the best talent you have to pay," but when it comes to teachers people say "they should be doing it for the love of it, not the money."

Because those people are ignorant, either naturally or deliberately, and think that somehow their own upbringing wasn't just as subsidized by the nanny state they bitch about as anyone else that grew up in a first-world country.

They were all raised by wolves in the forest and had to fight to the death for every bit of sustenance in their lives, didn't ya know? Remember the movie 300? They grew up like those guys, except for without the helots [wikipedia.org] that made it all fucking possible.

In other words, they're full of shit and just don't want to pay it forward now that it's their turn to do like their parents and everyone before them did.

I'm going into teaching. I just finished student teaching, I'll have my certificate for Secondary Ed within a month or two. The *minimum* salary I will be paid is clearly posted and easy to find. There's really no excuse to complain about your pay when going in you know what you're getting into. Schools are free to pay teachers whatever they want above the minimum and many do. Teachers are paid middle class income. If you don't want to earn middle class income, then find a different profession.

And yes, teachers actually have to like their job because if the teacher isn't enthusiastic about what they are teaching, the students aren't going to be enthusiastic about what they're learning. I've been living on 30K for the last few years with a nice house, a decent car, etc. The minimum teacher's salary with my credentials is actually a raise so no, I'm not complaining.

Teaching is not a revenue generating profession. CEOs can quantify their value in real dollars and that's how they get paid. On top of not generating revenue, teachers are barely being ranked on results. By what objective metric can we say that a particular teacher deserves X amount of dollars? Currently we just lump all teachers together and refuse to acknowledge teachers as individuals. Any attack on a particular crappy teacher is turned into an attack on all teachers.

So until that changes, teachers will be paid a decent middle class income. And no, they have no room to complain about it unless they want to change the collective mindset into an individual mindset.

FWIW, Ben & Jerry's (the ice cream company) once tried to find a CEO that should be doing it for the love it, not the money. After a so-called "essay-contest" they got Bob Holland. Five years later (and after going through another CEO in the meantime), Ben & Jerry's finally sold-out to Unilever (a british and dutch megacorporation).

What lesson can we draw from this? Perhaps that sometime people (incl. CEOs, teachers and often people managers) you hire that "should be doing it for the love of it",

As long as teachers are paid with tax and/or fake inflation money, the people who pay these taxes should be against them.

"us" vs "them" ? Like it is a war, against them, the teachers, nurses, firemen, policemen, soldier, politician ?
Wait, Microsoft, IBM, Boeing,... and all the big and not so big companies get boatload of money from the government either directly through contract or indirectly through customised regulation. It also us vs them, the employee of the top-500 companies including their CEO.
And the bailout ? Add all the bankers and all their support people (it, pa, cleaner,...) to them.

Because it's quite hard to do truly objectively. Looking at some numbers doesn't cut it, but the bureaucrats don't see past that. That's all there's to it. If you want to evaluate a teacher, and do it well, it will cost you real money in time of people who will do the evaluation. And it's not something you can do in an hour, nor even in a day.

They're not defacto rulers. They just pay an internationally competitive tax rate.

Forget what you think the tax rate should be... what is the most you can charge before the companies leave the country.

Not only do companies need to offer competitive prices to make sales... countries need to offer competitive tax rates.

That doesn't make the companies the rulers. It merely forces you to be reasonable. If doing business in your country costs the company more money then other places then it isn't reasonable.

Companies will take a zero sum of the whole thing. So if you want higher wages, that's fine... it just gets added to the total cost of doing business. You want to offer healthcare to people? Again, it just get added.

Every time you add something it reduces the amount you can take in taxes before you cross the line and it becomes cheaper to do business elsewhere.

So be careful with it. If you want the tax money, you'll probably have to make doing business cheaper by skimping on something else. Maybe loosening regulations. Maybe making labor cheaper. Whatever. But if you make it too expensive to do business in the US, they'll leave.

Game over. Then you get ZERO in taxes. They are out of your jurisdiction so the regulation is irrelevant. And labor policies are also irrelevant because everyone is unemployed.

You're describing a race to the bottom. It ends in the death of the first world lifestyle. Fuck that. We should charge corporations what we think is reasonable, and if they don't like it, then strip their executives of citizenship and kick them out. If Ballmer had to choose between living in Somalia or helping pay for the civilization he enjoys living in, I suspect he'd suddenly come to a very different conclusion about what level of taxes is acceptable.

The U.S. is the largest consumer market in the world and these guys all depend on being able to sell their shit here to continue making their immense fortunes. Think not? Tell them to pack up their shit and take their products with them. Watch how fast they back the fuck down and start paying taxes.

We have the highest corporate rates, not the highest corporate taxes. After all the deductions, credits, loopholes, etc., our corporations do not generally pay more than in other developed countries. GE and Seimens have pretty similar businesses.

From GE's last annual report:

"Income taxes (benefit) on consolidated earnings from continuing operations were 28.5% in 2011 compared with 7.3% in 2010 and (11.6)% in 2009."

You honestly don't expect anyone to have sympathy for these guys, do you? If their fortunes are too much of a burden, I'm sure they can find plenty of people willing to take it off their hands and pay 10 times the tax rate these fucking assholes do with a fucking smile on their face the whole time.

It is not confiscation if its shares are purchased. Its called capitalism. They asked if they needed a bailout and said yes. Obama said fine and purchased the stocks and then became the new owner. As the largest shareholder he fired the CEO for being incompetent. Now they paid nearly all of it back and the new board is fairly independent.

This is why states and municipalities are free to choose their own taxation rates, all the way down to zero. And, those states that choose not to tax Microsoft, Apple, and others reap indirect benefits from having big business conducted in their state.

Meanwhile, Texas is sticking it to Amazon for the cash - their prerogative, and apparently the costs don't outweigh the benefits for Amazon in that case.

And, those states that choose not to tax Microsoft, Apple, and others reap indirect benefits from having big business conducted in their state.

And what are these "indirect" benefits? From TFA -

The company decided to open a small Reno, Nevada office to dodge the tax completely.

And from the Apple article a few days back -

Yet, with a handful of employees in a small office here in Reno, Apple has done something central to its corporate strategy: it has avoided millions of dollars in taxes in California and 20 other states

So it's not job creation - there are only a handful of employees in each office. There's no taxes to collect from the corp. and a relatively small amount from income tax from the employees. It looks like MS and Apple are just using Nevada and really giving little back.